Someone asked me recently about the ability to "Read the Room" and whether or not this was a skill that can be developed. I certainly believe it is a skill and can be cultivated. Perhaps the most impactful maxim which can guide us in this regard was taught to me by a Jedi Knight who went by the name Zenchi from the Temple of the Jedi Order. He told me, "Learn to Observe without needing to React."
The Internet, particularly the social media algorithm demon, has created an incentive not just to React to everything, but to Observe specifically to React. In this way we often bias our interpretation of that which we observe with a skew towards the least charitable interpretation so that our reaction can be as extreme as possible.
To counteract this and hone this skill of reading the room, we can practice several behaviors that will improve our lives.
First, be the last person to speak in an interaction. When you allow everyone else to have their say, it gives you a chance to examine their perspectives and gauge their intentions.
Second, questions are better than statements. The cultivation of curiosity leads to more robust conversations. A statement can often be viewed as dismissive or ultimate in nature, sometimes leaving a conversation partner feeling as though there's nothing left to say. Curiosity, by contrast, is almost always viewed as an invitation to continue discourse.
Third, speak in a way that is pleasant. We've been taught to rely on flippancy and sarcasm in modern discourse as we assume the intentions of others or deliberately misconstrue them to make ourselves look superior. By engaging with someone in a pleasant way, we can disarm hostility. Even if others fail to uphold this standard, we will still maintain our own peace which is of a value beyond measure.
#Conversations
A beta version of 2.15 arrived at F-Droid. It looks great and now uses Material 3 theme. Be aware: To install this version you need to explicitly select it in F-Droid.
#monocleschat
A new minor version has been released which brings GIF import, compatible stickers and other improvements.
#Snikket
A new version has been released bringing fixes and improvements from Conversations to Snikket users.
"Talk is the fertile field in which cultural change begins; in its absence, it's impossible for a group of people to solve a problem. The goal of the conversation is not to tell people about climate change. It's to expand the number of people in the conversation."
After #GUI, I've now pushed implementation of a #TUI output in #Libervia#CLI frontend, which shows A/V call video streams directly into your terminal! It's using #Kitty or #iTerm2 image protocols, or #Unicode half-blocks (thanks to #termimage)
I'm not aware of any other CLI tools doing something similar (#XMPP or not). It's not as useful as GUI, but it's quite fun :)
If you like Conversations, the XMPP client, FOSS, for Android, do not hesitate to support Daniel Gultsch, its maintainer.
"Daniel Gultsch is the maintainer of the Android Jabber client Conversations. In addition to that he develops various tools that aim to improve the Jabber ecosystem like the Compliance Tester or the Server Status Monitor."
It's always nice when you can have long, really good conversations with someone. Just talking about random things and making the best of the conversation in general.
This is how the #Fediverse should be at all times. We need more of this type of positivity around this place, especially after all the stuff that happened last week!
I encourage you to do whatever you can to make those good conversations happen!
Що першим ділом треба зробити з новим телефоном? Правильно, видалити або заблокувати купу передвстановленого туди лайна, після чого підключити #fdroid і поставити що треба.
Ще трошки доведеться тягнути з play, але не будемо про сумне.
Взагалі все це сумно, бо думати про новий телефон я починаю лише тоді, коли старий розвалюється в руках. І це завжди вольовий вибір між просрати гроші на це чи потерпіти ще кілька місяців-півроку-рік і потратити на щось корисніше.
Those who were scandalised by @element selling encrypted @matrix communications services to cops, and suggesting XMPP as a replacement, you might be interested to know that...
"Conversations_im seems to be doing its job at the German Federal Police."